Nine Costume-Design Secrets About Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

In the U.S. and the U.K., Downton Abbey’s 1920s costume-design achievements are regularly lauded—Lady Mary’s flapper-chic creations, Edith’s drop waists, oh my! But over in Australia, costume designer Marion Boyce has been creating a flurry of 20s fashion ensembles for Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, the beloved crime series that is three-seasons strong, which encompass a far wider range of Jazz Age occasions on a much slimmer budget.

The series’s heroine, Phryne Fisher (played by Essie Davis and created by novelist Kerry Greenwood) is everything we look for in a television sleuth: glamorous in dress, plucky in spirit, and uninterested in restrictive social conventions of the period. As such, Boyce is tasked with impeccably dressing this enterprising detective for everything from action sequences to romantic interludes. In honor of Acorn’s third-season release of the series, Boyce lets us in on nine secrets about dressing the impeccably appointed Miss Fisher.

The Queen Mother is Boyce’s fashion barometer for Miss Fisher.

“I design all the hats, compose them, and then the milliners place them, steam them, shape them. I’ve had a lot of fun with the hats but sometimes I look at them and think I’ve gone too far [laughs], and then I think of the Queen Mother, who used to wear completely outrageous hats. So I think about the Queen Mother’s hats and decide whether I’ve gone too far, or have farther to go. She’s always been my point of reference.”

Boyce has to create 95 percent of the clothing (rather than rely on vintage 1920s-era finds), for a few practical reasons.

The first: “People were much smaller in the 1920s.”

The second: “Because she’s an action hero. As such, we need multiple, and they’ve got to be able to withstand the action.”

The third: “Phryne needed to be bright and shiny. She needed these big sort of fluffs of fabric and she needed to be bright and shiny and a lot of the stuff—really beautiful stuff in the 20s—the fabrics collect in a way and become dull and tarnished.”

Boyce designs each of Miss Fisher’s costumes down to her pearl-tipped guns.

“I actually designed her handbag around that gun. Within the show, she pulls a lot of stuff out of her handbag so I needed all the dimensions of the gun—the weight of the gun, the size of the gun—so that she could effortlessly pull it out of the handbag I designed. Lots of the designs of particular items have centered around Miss Fisher’s props.”

Miss Fisher is a sartorial rule-breaker.

“What really attracted me to the show is Phryne, because she broke all the rules. She’s a combination of cool reserve and flamboyance, so it was just a cool mix of a character. At the time, English fashion was very staid, but Phryne has recently come from Europe, and she was mixing in a very Bohemian sort of crowd in Paris. It gave us a lot more leeway, as it were, and she was a bit of a maverick and she broke the rules.”

As a rule-breaker, no colors are off-limits for Phyrne.

“She’s got her strengths to her so she wears anything from turquoise to magenta to peacock colors. Each episode actually has a particular color palette—that carries down to what the extras are wearing.”

As an action hero, Phyrne does have a few 1920s costume cheats.

“We don’t incorporate stretch into the clothes but we do allow enough movement so that the clothes are safe [for her to perform the stunts in]. We spend a lot of time with the heels of her shoes—getting rubberized bits put on it so that she doesn’t slip and fall or [so that] she’s not going to twist her ankle. She probably wears more pants than she normally would have in the 1920s because they allow for more action and movement. However, we only use fabrics that you would have been able to find in the 20s—like a lot of silk. Because with a lot of man-made fabrics, you don’t get the beautiful drape of the garment.”

Boyce has found some articles of Miss Fisher’s clothing in bizarre places.

“One day I was in this old hardware store that sells really beautiful, old hammers and chisels, and they had this extraordinary kimono in their front window that, for some reason, they had been given and were selling. It probably was not the perfect place to actually have it with all of those greasy sort of tools—but I find some pieces in really odd places.”

The key to 1920s clothing for women were panels.

“In the 1920s, they cut quite differently for many reasons. One reason, for example, is that they didn’t have darts. They had to get movement shaped in a completely different way, so they used to cut across and use panels. Also, the other thing is that fabrics were a lot narrower so they had to cut in a different manner. They couldn’t just go straight down the cloth. To give themselves shape and movement they cut into those panels.”

Body language is just as important in conveying 1920s as the clothes.

“We stride now. We have bigger movements and we stride, and they had smaller steps and they were more measured in a way, because they had heavier footwear. Nowadays, we have what we call leisure wear, which is very relaxed and has a lot of movement freedom for us. But how you stood, how you wore hats, how you carried yourself—all of those things had to be learned by the actors.”

“What really attracted me to the show is Phryne because she broke all the rules. She's a combination of cool reserve and flamboyance, so it was just a cool mix of a character.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“I actually designed her handbag around that gun. Within the show, she pulls a lot of stuff out of her handbag so I needed all the dimensions of the gun, the weight of the gun, the size of the gun so that she could effortlessly pull it out of the handbag I designed.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“At the time, English fashion was very staid but Phryne has recently come from Europe and she was mixing in a very Bohemian sort of crowd in Paris. It gave us a lot more leeway.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“I think about the Queen Mother's hats and decide whether I've gone too far, or have farther to go. She's always been my point of reference.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“Each episode actually has a particular color palette—that carries down to what the extras are wearing.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“[As an action hero] she probably wears more pants than she normally would have in the 1920s because they allow for more action and movement.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

Boyce designed most of Miss Fisher's clothing because “se needed these big sort of fluffs of fabric and she needed to be bright and shiny and a lot of the stuff, really beautiful stuff in the twenties—the fabrics collect in a way and become dull and tarnished.”

Photo: Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“What really attracted me to the show is Phryne because she broke all the rules. She's a combination of cool reserve and flamboyance, so it was just a cool mix of a character.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“I actually designed her handbag around that gun. Within the show, she pulls a lot of stuff out of her handbag so I needed all the dimensions of the gun, the weight of the gun, the size of the gun so that she could effortlessly pull it out of the handbag I designed.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“At the time, English fashion was very staid but Phryne has recently come from Europe and she was mixing in a very Bohemian sort of crowd in Paris. It gave us a lot more leeway.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“I think about the Queen Mother's hats and decide whether I've gone too far, or have farther to go. She's always been my point of reference.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“Each episode actually has a particular color palette—that carries down to what the extras are wearing.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

“[As an action hero] she probably wears more pants than she normally would have in the 1920s because they allow for more action and movement.”

Courtesy of RLJE/Acorn.

Boyce designed most of Miss Fisher's clothing because “se needed these big sort of fluffs of fabric and she needed to be bright and shiny and a lot of the stuff, really beautiful stuff in the twenties—the fabrics collect in a way and become dull and tarnished.”